Preston Norton > Quotes

“It was in that moment that I realized something about human beings: We always care. Even when we don't care, or don't want to care, or we've been broken beyond the capability of caring...
We always do. It's our ultimate infallibility.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“Sometimes,' said Tegan, pausing almost thoughtfully, 'we get so caught up in the things we gotta do ... that we forget about the people.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“My doctor suggested my insomnia was trauma-related. I suggested it was I-don't-know-how-to-be-a-human-being-anymore-related. My doctor suggested that maybe that was trauma-related.”
― Preston Norton, Where I End and You Begin

“But they weren't [just numbers]. To someone, somewhere, those lost people were Everything.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“[H]e stooped down and wrote an answer to my question, Is love even real?

He wrote: Just because it defies logic and comprehension, that doesn't mean it's not real.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“I spoke of disintegrating, dissolving into your surroundings. About atoms coming undone from each other, and being freed from yourself.

She was free.

She was free to float upward. There was nothing to stop her. She was floating up through the roof of the car, through the atmosphere, through the stratosphere, into the stars. Into outer space. Her atoms were intermingling with stardust. She was floating up here because this was where she belonged. Her atoms were weaving like thread into the fabric of the universe. Together, they formed a tapestry - a great, infinite tapestry - of stars and nebulae, of death and darkness, of life and creation. Swirling together. Endless.

She was the universe.

And the universe accepted her.”
― Preston Norton, Where I End and You Begin

“-I suppose it starts with having a dream. And then chasing it. You chase after it like your life depends on it. In a sense, I guess it does."
-What sort of dream?
-Any sort. It doesn’t matter what it is.
The only thing that matters is that you want it from the deepest part of who you are, and you chase after it with everything in you.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“Have you ever done something really bad?' said Aaron.
...
'Um...' I said...'You do know who you're talking to, right? I don't think I've ever done a thing that wasn't really bad.'
'No, I mean really bad. Something you can't forgive yourself for. You want to forgive yourself for it, and you need to forgive yourself for it...but you just can't.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“Hope is an act of resistance.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“...What if we had that kind of passion with the List? This passion that was at the very root of our existence. and the injustice of it made our blood boil, and if we didn't complete the fuck out of this List, we would at least die trying.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“Buildings and houses and streets and trees of every shape and size - old and new - came together. Misfit puzzled pieces clicking into place. All part of the Masterpiece.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“You don't make your crush fall in love with you by being yourself. You do it by pretending to be someone a hundred times cooler than yourself and hide the true you, who is a total fucking disaster, behind a curtain of enticing white lies.”
― Preston Norton, Where I End and You Begin

“Wynonna Jones, you are no longer of this world. You are giving yourself up to the universe.”
― Preston Norton, Where I End and You Begin

“You're cool because you're yourself—gleefully, recklessly, one hundred percent yourself. And if that isn't cool, then fuck. I don't know what is.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“I think,” I said, “that there are so many words and labels for who we can be, and what we can be attracted to, and what we can identify as, that it’s sometimes easy to forget ourselves. The important thing isn’t the word or the label. The important thing is YOU.”
“Me?” said Holden, confused.
“And me,” I said. “And Wynonna. And Imogen. We’re all human beings. I think we’re more complicated than a single word: gay, straight, boy, girl, whatever. Most days, I identify more with a dot in the middle of a blank white page than anything else. And my life could start moving in any direction, and I don’t even know what direction that is! Only that it’s happening. I identify with the blankness. But…I think that’s okay.”
“Because the important thing is you,” said Holden.
I grinned. Returned my attention to the road. “Exactly.”
The important thing was me.”
― Preston Norton, Where I End and You Begin

“It’s funny how we try so hard to hide from the truth. We tell ourselves that it didn’t happen. We say it enough times that we start to believe it. We live in a lie that exists only for ourselves. But the Truth is still there—dangling above us, hanging on a very weary thread. Out of sight. Out of mind. Until the thread of our self-denial breaks, and the Truth comes crashing back down”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“Do you even know what hate is?” I said. Shawn looked confused, like this was a trick question. “It’s confusing freedom of speech,” I said, “with the right to be a hateful asshole without consequences.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“You know what the most dystopian idea in the world is to me?" I asked. "The idea that our feelings don't matter. We might as well be robots.”
― Preston Norton

“...there's a lot more to offer in life than what you're given in high school. Don't go thinking this is all you're ever gonna get.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“Nothing strengthens the soul like music that speaks to it—especially when you find it on your own. I think there's power in that.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“The hallways was a riptide, pulling everyone and everything into the cafeteria. Holden and I stepped into the flow of bodies, submitting ourselves to the undertow.”
― Preston Norton, Where I End and You Begin

“My fight-or-flight response was currently telling me to get the hell outta there. Except that my fight-or-flight response had a third, less-evolved option called deer-in-the-headlights.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“Art means nothing without the people who experience it...”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“Maybe time, itself, didn't heal all wounds. Maybe, in the end, it was people who healed those wounds. Nobody wants to hurt.

Maybe, deep down, all we want is to forgive and be forgiven.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“Some days, I don't want to believe in a God. Other days, I just... I need to believe. Horrible things happen, all over the world, every day. We ask ourselves: Why would God let this happen? And we want an answer to that question so bad, but there is no answer. Instead, there's just this... hope. This hope that, somehow, things can be right in the end. And I pray everyday that it's true.”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“Look, I know she feels hurt and betrayed by Faith. I know she’s coping with it the only terrible way she knows how. Sometimes, when we’re damaged, we have to become the bad guy before we heal enough to become something better.”
“That’s a fucking terrible philosophy.”
“It’s not a philosophy. That’s just how people are sometimes. Most people don’t decide to be bad. They’re just too fucked up to realize that’s what they’ve become.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“But I wasn't forgiving my dad because he deserved it. Forgiveness was never about deserving it.

But I wanted to forgive him.

Maybe forgiveness was a selfish thing. Maybe forgiveness was about self-preservation. About personal healing. About allowing yourself to become whole again.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk

“Are you on your period?"
"Do you wanna get stabbed to death with a tampon, fucker?!”
― Preston Norton, Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe

“i gave myself permission to freak out. smiled like an idiot, made an embarrassing screeching sound through my teeth, flapped my hands like tiny little chicken wings, the works.
mr. britton responded by doing pretty much the exact same thing.
we were only human, you know.”
― Preston Norton

“Sometimes you have to trudge through the bad in order to get to the good," Dad explained. "There's something rewarding about that level of perseverance.”
― Preston Norton, Hopepunk